A summary and review of the chewing gum study（原创）

This case study was supposed that a customer need a research proposal concerning the market survey of chewing gum. We, our study group, simulated a consultant for market survey and set a company’s requirement and environment to write a business research proposal for studying business research methods. After arguing and discussing various points with our group members. We programmed a power point that composes of twenty-one pieces of slide. At the following I will summary and review each slide of the power point about the chewing gum study from slide 3/21 to slide 20/21.

Slide 3/21:

In the class, the lecturer Dr Rob Hall emphasized the importance of written research proposal in the unit outline page 80. Our group discussed the whole page 80 and decided to formulate the key content followed the outline of this page. Since we haven’t yet study the “data processing and analysis” as well as “research deliverables” at that time, we only skipped these both topics.

Slide 4/21:

The purposes of the research are:

1 problem setting

1.1 As there are 1.3 billion people in china, it implies that the potential market is tremendous. The chewing gum market gallop in China but the problems of limit capital and human resource management also appear.

1.2 Majority of consumer of the chewing gum are youth below 35 years old. Can the market be expand and cover over the 35years old?

1.3 Multinational corporations are eager to widen their market share.

1.4 In this slide, I need to add one more problem: the pollution of the chewing gum. Someone usually put the chewing gum onto the public occasion after chewing the gum, such as on subway, bus, cinema or classroom.

2 management problem.

The competition is quit acute in chewing gum market. How to situation self brand and find out the competitive advantage, defining the market segmentation is necessary.

3 research objective.

Every brand of chewing gum has its attribute; through collecting data to clarify the key attribute from many brands is this research objective.

Slide 5/21:

The research design was separate into three steps:

1 exploratory research,

The methods of study consist of three

A. exploratory research B. description research C. causal research.

Why is the exploratory study conducted? The methods of exploratory study are adopted to clarify the ambiguous problem (note 1). When market is not clear, the exploratory research is usually conducted during the initial stage of the research process.

The process should be adopted the information of exploratory research originate from “secondary data”, secondary data are previously collected and assembled for some project other than the one at hand (note2). Secondary data is usually collected easier and cheaper. At the initial stage secondary data are prove to be available and economical for exploratory study.

2. Qualitative research: Qualitative research has three methods: projective techniques, in- depth interview are an unstructured, free-flowing interview with a small group of people.

3. Quantitative research: This method require taking central location survey, because the information of primary data is much more correct, direct and effective. Normally, it fire professional interviewers to interview the respondents.

Slide 6/21

The information of exploratory research is sourced from secondary data. What advantage and disadvantage they are with?

Advantage: Business researchers use others’ experience and data, when there are available, as secondary data. The primary advantage of secondary data is that obtaining secondary data is almost always less expensive than acquiring primary data. In addition, secondary data can usually be obtained quickly (note3).

Disvantage: each of these situations shows that even when secondary data are available, they may be inadequate. The most common problems are(1) outdated information, (2) variation in definition of terms (3) different units of measurement, and (4) lack of information to verify the data’s accuracy. (note 4)

Slide 7/21

The secondary data are generated from Internet, newspaper, books, periodical, information of stock market, bulletin of government, industry association and many other organization and so on. This information not need to pay and its cost is quit low. In addition, sometimes it is necessary to buy the information from the commercial research agency.

I consider that this part of secondary data should plus internal data. Most organizations routinely gather, record, and store internal data to help managers solve future problems. The accounting systems of most firms provide valuable information. Researchers should exhaust all sources within the company before searching elsewhere (note5).

We search attribute on the Internet and list many kinds of attribute since the information on Internet is easy to search.

Slide 8/21:

What is focus group? A focus group interview is an unstructured, free-flowing interview with a small group of people (note6) as above mentioned; focus group is adopted for qualitative research. Characteristics of qualitative research are less respondents, unstructured question formats indirect measurement and direct observation. The primary advantages of focus group interviews are that they are relatively brief, easy to execute, quickly analyzed, and inexpensive. Focus group is probability the better approach for qualitative research at this stage.

Define six key attributes from many attributes found out on Internet.

Slide 9/21:

According to page 99 of the unit outline, the procedure of focus group interview is designed as the slide 7 of power point.

Slide 10/21:

How to conduct the study of focus-group-discussion? The lecturers Dr. Rob Hall and Dr. Adrienne Bennett have demonstrated the situation in the classroom just like the slide 8 showing.

Slide 11/21:

In order to gain the accurate and reliable information as well as further explore the segmentation. It is necessary to conduct the quantitative research; in other words, taking central location interview for survey is more effectively.

Slide 12/21 and 13/21

What question should we ask? We designed some questions and a survey form related to the chewing gum study as slide 12/21 and slide 13/21. It is a little pity, the example of survey are the questions, no sentence of statements. (I remember that we particularly practice writing the sentence of statement regarding survey questionnaire)

Slide 14/21:

First step, we narrowed the range of customers who often chew the gum, then focus on 18-25 years old youth for major target consumer, 15-18 and 26-35 years old people as minor target consumer. Take the qualitative and quantitative survey in main city such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen. Since the 100 sample size for secondary group, I reckon that the 100 sample size for primary group is too small, after studying formulas for sample size, we should determine the sample size rely on the formulas n= (zs/E) square or according to the industry standards of page 190 of unit outline. The sample size should be “Survey-200/1000”. Of course, if the sample size varies, the budge and schedule also should be modified.

Slide 15/21:

Instrumentation: central location interview allows firm recruit and train staff of professional interviewers. Fieldwork: supervise and control the quality of interviewing.

Slide 16/21 and 17/21

The budget and time schedule was designed by a member of our group who is a director of marketing in the company and had some experience of market survey. The data are rightly based on his experience.

Slide 18/21

Synthesizing all the slides of above. We generalized and ranked each step of chewing gum study as slide 18/21.

Slide 19/21 and 20/21.

List six key kinds of attributes and eight sorts of brands of chewing gum

Summary:

Through the elaborate case study of chewing gum, I learned some methods of business research and know how to formulate a proposal of study research. However, the method we adopted is not always the best in any time and any place. There is no best method of survey; any approach of business research is based on the requirement of organization and environment in which the organization is. This is why we conduct the business research.